This documentary presents the many sides of the former imperial capital, which had become Greater Berlin only a few years earlier through the incorporation of numerous surrounding municipalities. With 3.8 million inhabitants, it was now the third-largest city in the world after London and New York and, after Los Angeles, the municipality with the largest area.
In addition to central sights, streets and squares with hectic city traffic are also shown, as well as tranquil neighborhoods. There are staged flashbacks reminiscent of historical greats of Berlin’s cultural life, but also an animated vision of the future in the then distant year 2000.
Produced by Ufa Kulturfilm, Ufa’s cultural department, this is the first feature-length city portrait in German film history. An entertaining self-portrayal filled with cheerful local patriotism, created after the worst aftermath of the First World War had been overcome, in a phase of economic upswing that went down in history as the “Golden 20s.” The film reflects the attitude to life and newly awakened self-confidence of the Germans following the war and inflation, and is also a kind of early city promotion, inviting viewers to visit a peaceful, modern and – despite all the hustle and bustle – still cozy Berlin.
The metropolis would not exist in this form for much longer. As we look back a century later on the city’s destruction through war, division, and often-botched reconstruction, THE CITY OF MILLIONS. A PORTRAIT OF BERLIN is an important, unjustly long-forgotten document of contemporary history.
DJ Raphaël Marionneau accompanied THE CITY OF MILLIONS with an electronic soundtrack.
